1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for generating a 3D knee joint image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, the occurrence of arthritis has increased due to the average life extension and a total knee arthroplasty to treat arthritis has been conducted. For the successful total knee arthroplasty, it is most important to recover an ideal lower extremity alignment by accurate bone cutting.
According to the related art, a 3D knee joint model is generated by mainly using a computed tomography (CT) and a patient specific bone cutting inducing apparatus which meets the generated model has been used. However, since a cartilage portion in a knee is not accurately differentiated using the CT image, it is difficult to accurately cut a bone.
Meanwhile, a magnetic resonance image (MRI) displays various tissues, such as a bone, a cartilage, a cortical bone, fat, a ligament, a meniscus, a muscle, a tendon, and a marrow fluid. However, since some tissues which are displayed by the MRI image have a distribution of similar brightness values, it is difficult to differentiate an interface between the tissues.
Therefore, passive and semi-automated algorithms which divide the desired region of the MRI image have been proposed. However, according to the above-mentioned methods, it takes much time to extract the desired tissues from the MRI image and the extraction accuracy and the extraction range are changed depending on the user's experience and judgment.